Analysis of To the Chief Musician upon Nabla: A Tyndallic Ode
James Clerk Maxwell 1831 (Edinburgh, Scotland) – 1879 (Cambridge, England)
I come from fields of fractured ice,
Whose wounds are cured by squeezing,
Melting they cool, but in a trice,
Get warm again by freezing.
Here, in the frosty air, the sprays
With fernlike hoar-frost bristle,
There, liquid stars their watery rays
Shoot through the solid crystal.
I come from empyrean fires --
From microscopic spaces,
Where molecules with fierce desires,
Shiver in hot embraces.
The atoms clash, the spectra flash,
Projected on the screen,
The double D, magnesian b,
And Thallium's living green.
We place our eye where these dark rays
Unite in this dark focus,
Right on the source of power we gaze,
Without a screen to cloak us.
Then where the eye was placed at first,
We place a disc of platinum,
It glows, it puckers! will it burst?
How ever shall we flatten him!
This crystal tube the electric ray
Shows optically clean,
No dust or haze within, but stay!
All has not yet been seen.
What gleams are these of heavenly blue?
What air-drawn form appearing,
What mystic fish, that, ghostlike, through
The empty space is steering?
I light this sympathetic flame,
My faintest wish that answers,
I sing, it sweetly sings the same,
It dances with the dancers.
I shout, I whistle, clap my hands,
And stamp upon the platform,
The flame responds to my commands,
In this form and in that form.
What means that thrilling, drilling scream,
Protect me! 'tis the siren:
Her heart is fire, her breath is steam,
Her larynx is of iron.
Sun! dart thy beams! in tepid streams,
Rise, viewless exhalations!
And lap me round, that no rude sound
May max my meditations.
Here let me pause. -- These transient facts,
These fugitive impressions,
Must be transformed by mental acts,
To permanent possessions.
Then summon up your grasp of mind,
Your fancy scientific,
Till sights and sounds with thought combined,
Become of truth prolific.
Go to! prepare your mental bricks,
Fetch them from every quarter,
Firm on the sand your basement fix
With best sensation mortar.
The top shall rise to heaven on high --
Or such an elevation,
That the swift whirl with which we fly
Shall conquer gravitation.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EXEXXFXF CGCGHXHX IFIFJBJB KEKELMLM NONXXAXP QPQPRSRS TUTUVOVO |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111101 1111110 10111001 1101110 10010101 111110 110111001 1101010 111110 101010 11011010 1001010 01010101 010101 010111 01101 111011111 101110 110111011 0101111 11011111 1101110 1111111 11011101 110100101 11001 11110111 111111 111111001 1111010 1101111 0101110 1110101 1101110 11110101 1101010 11110111 010101 01011101 0110011 11110101 0111010 011100111 0101110 11110101 111 01111111 111010 11111101 1100010 11011101 1100010 11011111 110010 11011101 0111010 11011101 11110010 11011101 1101010 011111011 111010 10111111 110010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,110 |
Words | 372 |
Sentences | 35 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 64 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 204 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 45 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:52 min read
- 126 Views
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"To the Chief Musician upon Nabla: A Tyndallic Ode" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20083/to-the-chief-musician-upon-nabla%3A-a-tyndallic-ode>.
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